NASSCO plans to deliver the first of three MLP ships to the Navy in 2013. The building contract will bring the company more than $1 billion in work.

General Dynamic-NASSCO says it has finished assembling the 765-foot structure of the first Navy Mobile Landing Platform ship (MLP) ahead of schedule and below cost at its shipyard south of the Coronado Bridge. The job involved cutting, setting and welding 26,241 metric tons of steel.

Shipbuilders lifted the final block of the USNS Montford Point into place on August 17th and wrapped up the welding roughly two weeks later. The company has yet to say how far ahead of schedule it is, but NASSCO is planning to deliver the vessel to the Navy in the second quarter of 2013.

In a statement, NASSCO President Fred Harris said, “The MLP is the beneficiary of the ship-construction lessons learned during the successful T-AKE Program and a concerted ‘Design for Producibility’ effort. “With this ship, we have further reduced construction time and applied improvements that have increased the efficiency of our workforce.”

The MLP is a new type of vessel that's meant to serve as a "pier at sea," improving the Navy's ability to move equipment and personnel to-and-from shore. NASSCO is building all three MLP ships at a cost expected to exceed $1.3 billion. Earlier, NASSCO built 14 Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ships for the Navy.